“And Ashton? The elder one, that is?” He frowned. “Good Lord, that is annoying. Adrian, then.”
“I haven’t asked him.”
Lee blinked. “You haven’t asked Adrian, the one accused of murder, about the case?”
Heat rose in her cheeks. “Alexander doesn’t want me to speak to him.”
“Why the devil not?”
“He’s afraid I’ll get the wrong impression of Adrian. Or their family. Honestly, I’m not entirely sure.”
“Wasn’t Alexander the one to ask for your help?” Lee asked with genuine confusion. “And he won’t let you speak with his brother?” He scoffed. “Forgive me for saying so, but your beau is an idiot.”
“He isn’t my beau.” Despite herself, she felt the need to defend Alexander. “And he isn’t an idiot. He’s protective of his family. He’d kept it from me this entire time that his mother and her family are Greek. As if that’s something that ought to be some great secret.”
Lee’s finger traced his lower lip, eyelids lowered as he considered her. “Alexander Ashton is Greek, keeping secrets, and decidedly not your beau. Fascinating.”
She scowled at him. “Lee. Be serious.”
“I might be, if you’d allow it,” he said, winking. He hurried on before she could scoff at him. “What other secrets have you dug up about Ashton?”
“You are a wretched gossip.”
“I have only the maid to chat with these days.” He wiggled his fingers at her. “Out with it, Everleigh. What gruesome skeletons are in Ashton’s closet?”
“He knows Elizabeth’s brother somehow,” Saffron admitted. It felt good to tell someone other than Elizabeth, who’d not thought anything of it. “They were … having what seemed to be a rather unpleasant conversation just last night. Nick came to the U to see our botany facilities since he works in agriculture, and—”
Lee scoffed again. “Sounds more like he was trying to make nice with you.”
“A man might actually have an interest in plants, you know,” Saffron replied hotly. “He might actually care about what I have to say about my work.”
“Of course. Forgive me, do go on.”
“Alexander looked very angry when I saw them from the window speaking on the street.”
“And I don’t suppose he told you why?”
“I have no reason to think he’d tell me anything,” she said. “He’s been remarkably opaque. I think they must know each other from the war.”
“Well, I can do one thing for you, since I was useless with your chemicals. My Uncle Matt has his finger in every governmental pot, and I daresay he could dig up some information about Ashton. See if he and Nick might have bumped into each other on the march. What’s Nick’s full name?”
Mattias Lee was a rather important figure in British politics, though Saffron didn’t imagine he’d know anything about the average soldier. “Nicholas Andrew Hale. A major, I believe.”
Lee rubbed his hands together excitedly. “Very good. I’ll see what I can find out for you. I’m guessing they didn’t get on in the army and now find themselves butting heads once again. As for everything else, let’s just hope whatever secrets Ashton is keeping don’t tie a noose around his brother’s neck.”
CHAPTER14
Employment records, Saffron found, were quite useful. Lee’s suggestion of finding Alexander and Nick’s military history inspired her own foray into the university recordkeeper’s office, and she soon emerged with an address.
Alexander lived in a second-story flat in the exact kind of place she’d guessed he would live. Respectable and practical, just a six- or seven-minute walk from campus. She climbed the stairs, bracing herself. She was tired of arguing with him at the university, where she guessed he didn’t feel comfortable speaking about personal matters. He’d clammed right up the previous day, and she didn’t want to give him any excuses this time.
Invading his privacy was possibly not the best way to do it, but he might also see it for the olive branch it was. She was coming to him, ready to apologize for being so upset about not being told something he obviously felt was private, and ready to needle him until he gave her what she needed to help Adrian. Everything she’d learned about Petrov’s death—admittedly not much—suggested that Adrian wasn’t responsible. She needed to figure out what about Adrian had made the police suspect him if she was to counter it.
But when she knocked, it was Adrian, not Alexander, who opened the door.
She immediately lifted her eyes up and toward the corner of the doorway. He’d answered the door in trousers with braces dangling and an undershirt, his curly hair wild and his jaw stubbled. Voice toohigh, she said, “I’m terribly sorry, Mr. Ashton, but I was hoping to speak to Alexander.”
Adrian chuckled. “Iam terribly sorry, Miss Everleigh. You must think me brash for opening the door like this, but I thought you were my brother. He’ll be back any minute. Come, come inside and let me put on a shirt, hmm?”
